The munchkins enjoy taking over Mommy’s pilates mat and inventing their own magical world of possibilities.
Sometimes looking at all the materials for homeschooling that are available these days is dizzying. There’s 500 different ways to do 1000 different things. Charts, flash cards, kits, gadgets, online tools, printouts, things to assemble, supplies to manage. I have gradually been pulling back from the sea of overwhelm as I embrace a more minimalist approach to my life, our home, and how we navigate the world. The last family trip we took—to our family reunion—we managed to carry everything for 5 people in one backpack, one duffel, and 3 kid-sized backpacks. We took the bus to the metro, the metro to the Amtrak, and the train to our destination. We didn’t rent a car when we arrived but just got rides from family.
It was exciting to see us moving through the world a little lighter. The year before we’d gone on an overnight, to a place much closer, and I’d packed twice as many bags plus a full suitcase. In our home space I’ve been slowly finding my way through the decluttering maze, learning how to let go of things that I don’t really need. The biggest help to me so far in my newborn minimalism is Francine Jay’s book, The Joy of Less. Even though I haven’t finished all of it, her STREAMLINE process opened my eyes to how much more freely I could be living if I reduced the amount of things I had to keep up with, care for, preserve, restore, and buy.
In looking at our supplies for our family learning lab, I started to see that we don’t need a lot of materials to have very meaningful experiences. The main elements I really want that will support our optimal flow is simple, effective wall-space organizers so that my toddler can’t get her hands into all our materials. Right now, we have very little “up space,” and Jubilee can pretty much access everything. But if I had some floating shelves to keep our basic materials—art supplies, paper, worksheets, puzzle pieces, building materials—handy and out of her reach, there’d be much more efficiency with our space. As it is now, to set up something for the munchkins, I have to dig through all my toddler-proof hiding spaces and retrieve whatever it is we need to do our activity.
I’ve also been softening my own understanding of what qualifies as a meaningful moment. The more I follow my children’s leads, the more I see that they extract great meaning, joy, and enthusiasm from very organic moments. Walking to the bus stop, shopping at the grocery store, talking to someone on the train, looking at the same dinosaur exhibit at the museum, collecting sticks in the park, playing in dirt, reading books on the front porch, running back and forth from the front of the house to the back, making up their own imaginary worlds inside their blankets and constructing elaborate storylines to go with them. Most of what they love to do doesn’t require external materials. This revelation has been really profound to me because I see that it’s not the things they crave, but the experience of play, surprise, experimentation, discovery, and expanding connections about how their world works that makes the moment rich for them.
The question that keeps me reflecting and continuing to grow into a more minimalist flow is, “what’s the bare minimum we need to have a wonderfully engaging experience today?” So far our book collection, magnetic tiles, building blocks, race cars, our chalkboard and dry erase board, writing tools, coloring tools, blank paper, speaker system and music playlist are our daily go-to materials. Also, our home’s ample open space—we have almost no furniture—for them to run, dance, and play capoeira throughout the day is extremely essential. None of these things take up a lot of space, and we can spend good chunks of time diving into various stories, games, experiments, and activities with just these few things.
It’s taken time to evolve our family learning lab in this way. I started out wanting to buy lots of things that seemed to make for a stimulating moment. But the things would soon become used up, dried out, discarded, lost, broken, missing pieces, forgotten about. Meanwhile, the munchkins would happily move on, not the least bit concerned with the absence of the thing that had so entertained them. Instead, they would create with whatever was around them, and find absolute bliss in the process of being present with their surroundings. I am always fascinated at how the most mundane object, or tattered book, or thrift store toy can bring recurring moments of pleasure to them on any given day. Watching them enjoy their home, their toys, their adventures, their world is very enlightening. They have a gentle wisdom about them that inspires me to keep going deeper with my own minimalism goals.
I’m still learning how to determine what things we really need, but I am getting better at distinguishing between items that will just take up space and items that will aid me in facilitating our family learning lab. Plenty of times I am adding things I see online to my imaginary wishlist of all the things I would get for them if I could buy them right now. But then I’m snapped back to the reality of what I hold in my hands in this moment, and how we’re rolling with what we have today. I remind myself that, as I am, I already have all the things I need to nurture a dynamic and exciting learning environment for them.
I have my very attentive presence to offer them, my constant commitment to answering the million questions about the sun, robots, growing old, muscles and bones, living and dying, traveling to Africa to see their other grandmother, the mechanics of airplanes, the magic of mixing colors—all questions usually thrown out there for inquiry before breakfast is even served. Our ongoing dialogue, our physical intimacy and perpetual proximity to each other and our home space, our creativity, our questions and ideas, our continuous, unscheduled time together—these are the elements of truly meaningful learning moments. Our most precious things can not be bought online or found on sale at a big box store. We are each other’s greatest resources, and we already possess the essential tools that we need to grow, learn, explore, and create more joys.